TCL S405 55" (55S405) vs LG B7A OLED 55" (OLED55B7A)

The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness.

The S405 is versatile enough to be used as a general-purpose display.

The picture quality is decent for movies and TV shows, and it checks all the boxes that makes a TV suitable for gaming, sports, and as a computer monitor: low input lag, low motion blur, good screen uniformity, and full 4:4:4 color support.

Even when the S405 is mounted on a wall, you'll still have access to all essential inputs and outputs which are situated on the side of the unit.

The S405 looks decent with adequately deep black levels, above-average color accuracy, and sufficient peak brightness levels for most content.

It’s especially great at reproducing dark scenes thanks to the panel’s contrast ratio of about 4000:1, which means blacks can get really dark at about 4000 times darker than the brightest white it can produce.

Colors are spot-on even without calibration, and the panel can get bright enough with a peak brightness level of ~200 nits to make them pop in dark environments.

The best viewing experience will be in a dark environment where the panel won’t have to compete with light. The S405’s screen can’t really get bright enough to perform as well in bright environments.

The S405 is excellent at reproducing colors accurately out of the box.

Even without calibration, the colors are spot-on - they're very close to what the source signal demands, and any inaccuracies are generally considered imperceptible to most end users.

The overall average difference between the source signal and the panel's reproduction of the color is measured in Delta-E, where lower means better accuracy. The S405 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users.

Color calibration can be performed easily via the Roku mobile app. You won't have to fiddle with the remote trying to set the values correctly.

The S405 has no ads on its main interface, although there can be ads in third-party applications. Third-party ads can't be blocked, but the tracking and personalisation can be limited through the TV's settings.

The S405 is excellent for gaming - the overall experience will be very responsive and fluid, thanks to the really low input lag and barely noticeable motion blur.

It has an input lag of ~15ms that makes the TV highly responsive to user input - gamers will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what's on the display. The panel can fully change its pixels color in under 15ms, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.

It's also suitable for HDR gaming because there is no increased input lag for HDR, and it has full 4K suport @ 60 FPS, which makes it suitable for all new 4K games.

The S405 runs on the Roku TV smart platform, touted for its simple, straightforward, and lag-free UI.

It’s easy for anyone to grasp how navigation works, thanks to its two-column design with the menu on the left and options on the right.

There’s also no noticeable lag during navigation or menu selection.

The S405 is a good pick for watching sports thanks to its low motion blur and reasonably consistent color uniformity.

Fast-moving objects, like footballs, won't leave any visible trails on the screen due to the low motion blur of ~15ms. While there are slight uniformity inconsistencies in the edges of the panel when displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields, the issues generally go unnoticed by most.

The S405 works well as a computer monitor thanks to its low input lag, barely noticeable motion blur, and full 4:4:4 color support. The 43" model can even be used up close due to its small minimal viewing distance.

The low input lag and low motion blur of ~15ms makes it highly responsive to input and gives it the ability to handle dynamic content well.

It also has full 4:4:4 color support, so text or shapes with hard edges on the screen won't be blurry.

The S405 strikes a nice balance between picture quality, screen size, and input lag, all for an affordable price of below $500. It's a great choice for watching and gaming casually without breaking the bank.

Compared to its direct competitors, it offers decent picture quality that is a tad below them, bigger screen size, and lower input lag.

Content looks decent enough for most casual viewers - the black levels are sufficiently deep, colors are vivid, and it gets bright enough for most types of content in a dark room.

The size difference is pretty huge as options with similar size of 49", or even smaller, cost fairly more than the S405.

Its low input lag of ~15ms contributes to a more responsive gaming experience. It's barely noticeable, and it’s also one of the lowest among 4K TVs, which is an impressive feat in this price bracket.

The B7A is the perfect choice for HDR content. On top of its exceptional picture quality with perfectly deep blacks, it has everything essential to an excellent HDR experience: an OLED panel, wide color gamut, and high peak HDR brightness levels.

Shadow details are perfect and highlights are really stunning, making for an immersive experience. The OLED panel can manipulate pixels individually, which means it has control over every tiny bit of the picture.

The panel can also reproduce the colors necessary for true HDR, and these colors will really pop thanks to its high peak brightness level of ~700 nits.

The B7A is great at handling reflections. It can fight glare pretty well in bright environments, thanks to its anti-reflective coating on the panel.

The B7A runs on the webOS smart platform, known for its intuitive and fully customizable UI. It’s built around a Launch Bar that provides quick and easy access to the TV's apps, settings, and inputs. This can be customized and re-organized to the user's liking.

The B7A looks good from almost any angle thanks to its OLED panel, making it a great choice if you usually watch the TV with large groups of people.

Its viewing angle is wide enough for a group of audience to experience more or less similar picture quality when watching from multiple angles off the center of the screen. The black levels and brightness only starts degrading at ≥75°, which means the picture quality will stay roughly the same no matter which angle the screen is viewed from.

The B7A can reproduce a really broad range of colors that are crucial for HDR, which also means it has zero issues with SDR colors.

It’s capable of reproducing ~70% of the standard colors for 4K HDR, the Rec. 2020 colorspace. This is one of the highest in the 4K TVs market.

It can also display these colors at different brightness levels accurately that conveys much more HDR details than its direct competitors can.

Apart from games, the B7A is great for movies and sports. Its top-notch picture quality, combined with the features it offers, makes it perform really well across different kinds of use cases.

Movies look excellent thanks to the exceptional picture quality, and it’s also a great pick for watching sports because the motion blur is non-existent and the panel is really uniform.

It has near-perfect pixel response time of ~1.0ms, resulting in virtually no motion blur, so fast-moving objects like football don’t leave any trails on the screen. The panel is also uniform enough that it has no issues with displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields.

While the B7A can seem rather expensive, the picture quality and features it offers is top-of-the-line and can’t be beaten. The performance easily outclasses all other TVs in this price bracket.

The B7A can display clear and crisp images from a computer thanks to its full 4:4:4 color support. Because of this, text or shapes with clear, hard edges won’t be blurry.

The B7A can display extremely fast-moving objects smoothly without any blur or lag, thanks to its OLED panel that has near-perfect pixel response time of ~1.0ms.

The B7A is excellent for gaming thanks to its really low input lag and near-perfect pixel response time that gives it virtually no motion blur.

It’s perfect for all types of games, even fast-paced action games. The experience will be really responsive and fluid. Players will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what’s on the display thanks to the really low input lag of ~20ms, and fast-moving objects won’t leave any trails on the screen because the panel has a response time of ~1.0ms - it can fully change its pixels color in that tiny amount of time.

The B7A comes with LG's Magic Remote, touted for its easy-to-use design.

It works similarly to a Nintendo Wii remote where the on-screen cursor follows the remote's movement, making it easy to navigate the UI and select menu items.

The remote also has a built-in microphone for the voice command feature, which also supports content searching with voice input.

The B7A’s input lag remains low at ~20ms even when gaming in 4K @ 60Hz + HDR, making for an really immersive and responsive HDR gaming experience.

The B7A runs on the webOS smart platform. It has a great ecosystem of apps, ranging from media streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc.) to third-party apps. Support for these apps are also first-class with up-to-date features and good performance; for instance, the YouTube app supports 360-degree video playback.

The B7A's picture quality is top-of-the-line. It has an OLED panel that gives it infinite contrast ratio, excellent screen uniformity, high peak brightness, wide viewing angle, and great handling of reflections.

Thanks to that, it can reproduce blacks perfectly and the uniformity is top-notch - they’re truly dark and even, because the OLED panel has the ability to manipulate pixels individually.

Colors really shine and look true-to-life, thanks to the peak brightness levels peak of ~400 nits for SDR & ~700 nits for HDR.

The picture quality also doesn't suffer from much deterioration when viewed from any angle because the panel has a really wide viewing angle. It’s also capable of maintaining the same picture quality in bright environments, thanks to its high peak brightness levels and great handling of reflections.